What if a kid can't behave "normally"? Who gets to decide what is "normal"? I assure you, getting bullied into suppressing who you are does not always make you "better off". "It's for your own good" has always been a poor justification for abuse, regardless.
July 22, 2025 at 10:11 PM
What if a kid can't behave "normally"? Who gets to decide what is "normal"? I assure you, getting bullied into suppressing who you are does not always make you "better off". "It's for your own good" has always been a poor justification for abuse, regardless.
So many replies to that post from people who legitimately believe the rabid anti-AI culture on this site is representative of broader society. It's genuinely disturbing to see people who've had their mental model of their fellow humans become so detached from objective reality.
July 19, 2025 at 10:23 PM
So many replies to that post from people who legitimately believe the rabid anti-AI culture on this site is representative of broader society. It's genuinely disturbing to see people who've had their mental model of their fellow humans become so detached from objective reality.
I'm not interested in arguing on behalf of conservatives. I will only state with fairly high confidence that most people who say things like "oh if batman's rogues gallery just teamed up they would defeat him easily" are aware that fictional stories are things written by people.
July 13, 2025 at 4:02 PM
I'm not interested in arguing on behalf of conservatives. I will only state with fairly high confidence that most people who say things like "oh if batman's rogues gallery just teamed up they would defeat him easily" are aware that fictional stories are things written by people.
I think most people are perfectly aware of how fiction works. There simply exists an alternative way of enjoying it that treats the world depicted therein as a foreign dimension from which facts are channeled. I don't see any reason to look down on this particular mode of engagement.
July 13, 2025 at 3:18 PM
I think most people are perfectly aware of how fiction works. There simply exists an alternative way of enjoying it that treats the world depicted therein as a foreign dimension from which facts are channeled. I don't see any reason to look down on this particular mode of engagement.
Did they do something worse than their usual shtick of constant irony-poisoned bait posting?
July 13, 2025 at 6:28 AM
Did they do something worse than their usual shtick of constant irony-poisoned bait posting?
A lot of Americans on this website have the same reaction.
July 12, 2025 at 12:30 PM
A lot of Americans on this website have the same reaction.
Not all of them. I just don't think it's a good habit to treat groups of people as monoliths. It's a natural human impulse that should be fought at every turn, because it can lead us down very dark paths.
July 2, 2025 at 4:45 AM
Not all of them. I just don't think it's a good habit to treat groups of people as monoliths. It's a natural human impulse that should be fought at every turn, because it can lead us down very dark paths.
What about the people in the community who didn't vote to commit suicide?
July 2, 2025 at 4:34 AM
What about the people in the community who didn't vote to commit suicide?
It's a problem that most universities and other institutions (the media) are led by people completely consumed by a culture of deference to authority. All it takes is a big enough authority figure telling them what to do and they immediately fold. No authoritarian immune system. Born to kneel.
June 24, 2025 at 1:48 PM
It's a problem that most universities and other institutions (the media) are led by people completely consumed by a culture of deference to authority. All it takes is a big enough authority figure telling them what to do and they immediately fold. No authoritarian immune system. Born to kneel.
Personally, I think how we measure time is an abomination that should've been corrected long ago. If only the ancient Babylonians had counted the right (less efficient) way.
June 23, 2025 at 9:09 PM
Personally, I think how we measure time is an abomination that should've been corrected long ago. If only the ancient Babylonians had counted the right (less efficient) way.
It's a good middle spot between whole units being too big and the numbers we most often work with being too big, it's a nice multiple of 10, and we're already used to using percentages for things.
June 23, 2025 at 9:06 PM
It's a good middle spot between whole units being too big and the numbers we most often work with being too big, it's a nice multiple of 10, and we're already used to using percentages for things.
What's the rationale for why it's unethical?
June 20, 2025 at 8:29 PM
What's the rationale for why it's unethical?
Ideally our society will, due to advances in technology, have slowly evolved toward economic systems that can allow for a declining population, but I'm not sure I'm optimistic about that on the timescale we're looking at. By the way, what rate of population increase would you consider "manageable"?
June 16, 2025 at 3:42 AM
Ideally our society will, due to advances in technology, have slowly evolved toward economic systems that can allow for a declining population, but I'm not sure I'm optimistic about that on the timescale we're looking at. By the way, what rate of population increase would you consider "manageable"?
It's objectively false that an LLM is a database. It is false regardless of your opinion on them. It's bad to be misinformed about something you deem dangerous.
June 14, 2025 at 1:58 AM
It's objectively false that an LLM is a database. It is false regardless of your opinion on them. It's bad to be misinformed about something you deem dangerous.
It's a meme, basically, in its original sense. Don't get me wrong, I'm a lefty myself. I just think it's very, very bad when people don't reason from moral principles, because it often leads to things much worse than this.
June 12, 2025 at 6:49 PM
It's a meme, basically, in its original sense. Don't get me wrong, I'm a lefty myself. I just think it's very, very bad when people don't reason from moral principles, because it often leads to things much worse than this.
Artists/writers hate AI and think IP protects them, therefore being pro-IP starts to mean "you care about artists/writers" (among most of the left). Being among mostly other lefties reinforces this via group dynamics. No psy-op needed. Alas, most people don't actually reason from moral principles.
June 12, 2025 at 6:46 PM
Artists/writers hate AI and think IP protects them, therefore being pro-IP starts to mean "you care about artists/writers" (among most of the left). Being among mostly other lefties reinforces this via group dynamics. No psy-op needed. Alas, most people don't actually reason from moral principles.
There's little empirical evidence of Gardner's multiple intelligences theory, and evidence of more correlation between the types than would be expected under the theory, so it's far from settled science. Even if it were, I fail to see why something that looks for only certain ones wouldn't be useful
June 11, 2025 at 7:41 PM
There's little empirical evidence of Gardner's multiple intelligences theory, and evidence of more correlation between the types than would be expected under the theory, so it's far from settled science. Even if it were, I fail to see why something that looks for only certain ones wouldn't be useful
You're part of the problem.
May 10, 2025 at 5:39 PM
You're part of the problem.
Media takes are a particular sore spot for many of these people, because media critique is the main vehicle by which they think they can affect social change and do good in the world, or at least they act that way. That, and it makes for good group signalling fodder.
May 10, 2025 at 12:58 AM
Media takes are a particular sore spot for many of these people, because media critique is the main vehicle by which they think they can affect social change and do good in the world, or at least they act that way. That, and it makes for good group signalling fodder.
That still doesn't excuse the behavior of many of his detractors. More importantly, and beyond anything specific going on with Stancil himself, I think this whole thing serves to point out some unsavory trends in how social media affects people.
May 10, 2025 at 12:39 AM
That still doesn't excuse the behavior of many of his detractors. More importantly, and beyond anything specific going on with Stancil himself, I think this whole thing serves to point out some unsavory trends in how social media affects people.
I'm not going to victim-blame here, but I honestly think it would help to more clearly define terms like "political" or "working class" when you use them. Though that doesn't excuse people recreationally choosing whatever definition lets them be the most angry. It could be interesting, though.
May 10, 2025 at 12:26 AM
I'm not going to victim-blame here, but I honestly think it would help to more clearly define terms like "political" or "working class" when you use them. Though that doesn't excuse people recreationally choosing whatever definition lets them be the most angry. It could be interesting, though.
He went on to say that its political message is incoherent. That's not the same thing as saying it's not political. Do you think its political message is coherent, or do you not acknowledge a difference between these two ideas?
May 10, 2025 at 12:18 AM
He went on to say that its political message is incoherent. That's not the same thing as saying it's not political. Do you think its political message is coherent, or do you not acknowledge a difference between these two ideas?
They didn't think black people were people the same way they were. They saw them as subhuman, undeserving of rights, that's how many justified it to themselves. Most people don't just do whatever they can get away with, most people like to at least convince themselves they're moral.
April 29, 2025 at 11:13 PM
They didn't think black people were people the same way they were. They saw them as subhuman, undeserving of rights, that's how many justified it to themselves. Most people don't just do whatever they can get away with, most people like to at least convince themselves they're moral.
"I wouldn't want this done to me" is different from "we shouldn't do this to other people". The former was always present, and the latter become more widely believed prior to abolition. I'm saying the founding documents of the country contributed, at least somewhat, to the spread of the latter.
April 29, 2025 at 10:48 PM
"I wouldn't want this done to me" is different from "we shouldn't do this to other people". The former was always present, and the latter become more widely believed prior to abolition. I'm saying the founding documents of the country contributed, at least somewhat, to the spread of the latter.
The paper didn't. The ideas people had, that slave labor is wrong, did.
April 29, 2025 at 10:35 PM
The paper didn't. The ideas people had, that slave labor is wrong, did.